March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said a suicide bombing that killed at least 40 people at a meeting of tribal leaders is aimed at sabotaging efforts to bring peace to the northwestern region bordering Afghanistan.

The attack in the Darra Adamkhel area near Peshawar occurred as leaders of five clans met yesterday to discuss peace in the region, the official Associated Press of Pakistan said. The bombing will strengthen the resolve of the government to tackle terrorists in the area, Musharraf said.

Extremists ``will meet their fate soon as the government and the people have joined hands to root them out for the sake of peace and stability,'' APP cited Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of North West Frontier Province, as saying yesterday.

Musharraf is trying to persuade tribal leaders to expel non-Pakistani terrorists sheltering in the border region where the army has deployed about 100,000 soldiers since it began an operation in 2003 to combat al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Suicide bombings and attacks on the army increased in tribal areas after the army raided the Red Mosque in Islamabad to end a standoff with clerics.

Al-Qaeda leaders have established a base in the border area, U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report last year, and Pakistan's army in recent months battled pro-Taliban fighters in the Swat Valley near Afghanistan.

Outside Support

Terrorists are receiving support from outside Pakistan to sustain their operations, APP cited Lieutenant General Hamid Nawaz Khan, the caretaker minister of the interior, as saying in an interview with Pakistani television yesterday. India's intelligence agency may also be involved, he said.

The suicide attacker yesterday blew himself up when elders and members of the Chaper Khel, Akwarwall, Zargoonkhel, Toor Chapper and Bosi Khel tribes were leaving the meeting, APP said. More than 1,500 people were at the gathering, known as a jirga, according to APP.

The attack in Darra Adamkhel, about 40 kilometers (16 miles) from Peshawar, occurred three days after 40 people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a funeral procession in the region, the report said.

Yesterday's bombing was un-Islamic and a violation of tribal norms, APP cited Ghani as saying.

Musharraf reached agreements with tribal leaders in North and South Waziristan in 2004 and 2006 for non-Pakistani gunmen to be expelled from the region. That strategy failed to produce results, the U.S. State Department said last month.

Al-Qaeda Call

Al-Qaeda deputy commander Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a videotape released last August, called on Pakistani Muslims to attack Musharraf to avenge the army's assault on the Red Mosque. Pro- Taliban clerics occupied the site to demand Islamic law be introduced in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.

The authorities in Pakistan two days ago charged Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, and four other people with planning the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Associated Press reported, citing Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, the chief police investigator. Bhutto was killed Dec. 27 at a political rally in Rawalpindi.

Mehsud, who leads a force of about 5,000 fighters, formed an alliance with about five pro-Taliban groups last December known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, according to a report by the Combating Terrorism Center of the U.S. military academy at West Point.

The alliance, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a group fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir state, and Tehrik Nefaz-I-Shariat Muhammad, led by Pakistani cleric Maulana Fazlullah, are fighting North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan and receiving funds from al-Qaeda, insurgents, Major General David Rodriguez, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said last week.

Fazlullah is seeking to impose Islamic law in Pakistan's Swat Valley, a once popular tourist destination about 250 kilometers from Islamabad.

The number of people killed in terrorist attacks more than doubled to 2,116 in Pakistan last year, the government has said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net; Jay Shankar in Bangalore at jshankar1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 2, 2008 18:58 EST